Down to Earth
by Pandora Nuker
Summary: The ninja learn the hard way that the Serpentine, Skullkin & Garmadon aren't the only villains in Ninjago. And when their greatest enemy threatens to destroy them for his own selfish gains and release his own "Great Devourer" on the land, can the idealism of the Ninja save the day? Or will Ninjago finally be brought down to Earth as evil, political corruption, and cynicism prevail?
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: You know the routine. Copyrights to respective owners.**

**Also, I'm just writing this as an experiment (for my own purposes), so I'm not 100% familiar with Ninjago and its history. So don't judge me too harshly on accuracy because I'll probably make quite a few mistakes. Also would love concrit since I'm not going to get better otherwise.**

Andrew Walker smiled at the clean, crisp executive desk that stood before him.

It had been only a few weeks ago when he took the podium of the Political Ninjago Convention, when he proudly accepted the nomination of the Political Party in his bid for the presidency. His "progressive" Government-Party opponent had earlier made a controversial statement regarding potential integration and cooperation with the Serpentine, a position that had costed him much support and his biggest financiers. Nobody was surprised when a vigilante assassinated the Government-Party candidate two weeks later, and by then the Government Party realized it was too late. Angry citizens of Ninjago streamed out on election day and Walker won by a historic landslide. He promised to take a hardline against the Serpentine, through any and all means necessary.

And now, he was President of Ninjago.

He slowly took a seat in the comfortable velvet chair, and gave it a spin. He could nearly feel the power permeating through him, but a small thought nagged at his mind. He wanted more power, but one thing was keeping him from it.

He could not control the ninja.

Technically, they were under his jurisdiction- but they were too powerful, and in reality they could probably do whatever they wanted. The fact that a few entities were out of his control bothered him greatly. He picked up the new, shiny pen, grabbed a piece of flawless letter-size stationery embossed with the seal of the presidency, and connected the two to form his first executive memo. A legislator's shoulder would be tapped and of course the bill would easily pass in a Political-party dominated legislature.

But of course, he had other things to occupy him in the meantime- his venture capitalist activities would greatly benefit from having the presidency. He immediately set on the pile of oil-drilling permits submitted by his company the Petro-Corporation-Association, and laughed wildly to himself as he stamped his approval onto all of them.


	2. Chapter 1

Kai blasted open the doors to the Destiny's Bounty, a fire in his eyes.

"Why in Ninjago is the President raising a standing army?" he yelled, to no one in particular. "Aren't we enough to defend this land?"

Zane dropped the newspaper he was reading. "Says the citizens need to take 'national security' into their own hands and off of these 'extra-judicial vigilantes'" he matter-of-factly stated.

Kai retorted angrily "Extra-judicial vigilantes? Think of how many times we've saved this place! The rabble admire us one minute and then toss us aside when we're not perceived as needed. We need a new enemy to fight."

"Careful there Kai- our mission is to train Lloyd. With Garmadon over our heads, it would probably not be wise to wish another enemy force." Cole cooly declared. "It's just a phase. Most likely the president is just trying to establish himself in his new government. I guarantee not much will come of it."

"Still, I think it's a waste to maintain a military when they have us around, not to mention the prophecy..." Kai trailed off.

Jay broke the tension with his casual attitude. "Us, discussing politics? Leave it to those funny-looking pundits on the TV to banter about that. If anything this new army will take some of the load off of us and leave us more time to slack off."

"Agreed," the ninjas declared in chorus. Jay had a point- politics was not a very fun topic for discussion. They then decided to go play some videogames.

Meanwhile, Nya covertly overheard the entire discussion, and unlike the ninjas, possessed a functioning understanding of Ninjago politics. The new development worried her- a standing army no doubt meant the government had grown distrustful of the ninja and were creating a replacement. Of particular concern to her was the fact the president belonged to the Political Party, a conglomeration infamous for its ambitious, amoral members, in addition to his being the former CEO of a large petroleum company. She was determined to go do some investigating herself.

* * *

President Walker inspected the new batch of recruits as they lined up and held their rifles in position. In the back a prototype tank rumbled silently. His plan was finally coming to fruition.

He leaned over to his Commander of the Armed Forces, Ross Anderson.

"How long do you think it'll take for us to grow the army to my desired size?"

Anderson replied in a thick Scottish accent "Not very long sir, if army expansion rate is too low we could probably begin a draft. The people possess a strong hatred of the Serpentine and it would not be difficult to motivate them to fight them."

"Excellent. I have already begun turning the wheels of the propaganda machine in our favor. It won't be long before we can put the ninja in their proper place." Walker stated, as he looked upon his soldiers with a smiling face. Soon, he would assume control over all of Ninjago thanks to the help of his army, and defeat Lord Garmadon himself.

"After all," he muttered, "all presidents who start a war in their first term get reelected."


	3. Chapter 2

A citizen of Ninjago City awoke to the sound of industrial machinery and a knock on the door. He quickly dressed himself in pajamas and, yawning, answered the door. A middle-aged man in overalls with a mustache and a hardhat greeted him.

"Hello fellow neighbor. My name is Foreman Artie Dent and I am here to announce that your house has been marked as eminent domain by the Petro-Corporation-Association. Please comply or we will be obligated to use force on you." he monotonously announced.

The citizen, still dazed from sleep, asked why they would have to demolish his house.

"Well," Foreman Dent continued, "Your house and the next few blocks around sit on top of Ninjago's largest proven petroleum reserve, the_ Alla-Gawari_. We have to demolish the establishments to drill for the petro. Don't worry, the wealth will trickle back down to you in the form of lower gas-prices."

The citizen had the vague feeling of not wanting his house torn down. He thought about the ninja and the samurai, wondering where they were when he needed them.

"Would it be possible to file an appeal?" he inquired, yawning towards the end of the sentence.

The foreman's voice grew sterner. "Look fella, I don't want to cause trouble here, but," and he tilted his head ever so slightly in the direction of a squad of waiting soldiers, "it's best not to delay the inevitable. Anyway, you need to sign a few forms I have here."

The citizen, his mind still muddled and also having a vague feeling of not wanting to be shot, decided "why the hell not?" and signed the forms. He was then herded out as the bulldozers went to work.

* * *

Nya stood in the front of the briefing room, the eyes of the other ninja on her. Her fears had partially been proven true, when the ninja received a mass of complaints regarding the Petro-Corporation-Association, and now they had to decide what to do. Recently she researched the history of the PCA and now she was presenting to the ninja her findings.

"The Petro-Corporation-Association was established to bring the power of petroleum to the people upon the discovery of the internal-combustion engine," she began. "However, its recent history has been full of scandals and missteps. Firstly, a significant portion of its top executives are illustrious graduates of the Darkley's School for Bad Boys. The company has been instigated in fraud, theft, and in some cases, murder. Unfortunately, the company's broad-reaching influence and government contacts have kept it afloat, along with the devastating economic consequences that would stem from its collapse."

The ninja stared at her blankly, and Lloyd enthusiastically raised his hand.

"Yes, Lloyd?"

"What is fraud?" he brazenly asked.

Nya shook her head in disappointment.

"For you guys- the PCA is an evil company that's grown too big over the years and has been doing lot's of evil things. They're soulless like Garmadon and deceptive like Pythor." she summarized.

Lloyd grew disgruntled at the mention of Pythor. "Why don't we just kick their butt already?"

She decided this question would be worth answering. "See Lloyd, there we have our problem. The PCA is planning to demolish the houses and businesses of many innocents to drill for petroleum. The issue is, as morally reprehensible as they may be, they have the permits of the government."

"How could the government approve permits for such a thing?" asked Kai incredulously. "I thought the government of Ninjago was moral and upstanding, dedicated to serving the people."

"I'm afraid all is not black and white as you may think, Kai" announced Sensei Wu as he entered the room. "Garmadon's evil influence has rippled across the land in more ways than one. One may say he has even been partially successful at reforming Ninjago in his own image." Wu then sighed before carrying on. "We are now presented a difficult choice- to fight for justice, or the law."

The ninja looked at each other, each in deep thought. Kai was the first to break the silence.

"I think we should stand for what's right. After all, the right thing to do doesn't change just because a few suited men think it does."

Cole was quick to rebut his argument. "Fighting against the law, even if it is corrupt, will on balance do nothing but harm. We may just as well decide to correct as much wrong in the world as we can, but it will help nobody if we end up in jail."

Jay sided with his friend Kai to help the citizens, and Zane allied with Cole. Ultimately, it was up to Lloyd to determine the course they would take.

"Can I pass?" he asked.

Cole was quick to reply. "Can't you see we're in a tie? No abstention allowed."

Lloyd weighed the two options carefully, until finally he delivered his verdict.

"If these guys are like Pythor, I want to kick their butt!" he proclaimed. Cole and Zane asked him if he had a more mature reason, but Lloyd was already directing Sensei Wu to redirect the ship.

"Get ready PCA, we're coming to beat you!" he affirmed. The other ninja could only hope that he would grow more mature in the future.


	4. Chapter 3

**Author Notes: Alright, time for some action. Don't worry, the politics will be back in no time.**

When the ninja landed in Ninjago City, the sight devastated them.

Bulldozers, the evil letters PCA etched in them, were demolishing the south-western sector of the city. Workers brought in iron struts and supports as they began to build a grid of petroleum drills into the city.

Lloyd, ever the childish one, rushed in head on. A few workers looked up from their workstations as Lloyd climbed on to a bulldozer, bashing it with Earth-element attacks and his youthful energy. Even the thick solid steel of the bulldozer was no match for his element-infused punches, and it quickly malfunctioned. He then hopped off, and Kai finished the victory by setting the bulldozer on fire. The ninja glared at the disbelieving construction foreman as he dropped to the ground, his eyes wet upon realizing what had happened.

The ninja's victory was short lived though, as without delay a choir of loud bangs emanated from behind the smoking metal carcass. The ninjas instinctively spun around as they saw bullets fly past them, and a squad of the new soldiers came into view. The troopers wore _Stahlhelms _and were garbed in an ominous dark grey. Their opaque sunglasses hid their eyes from the ninjas, as they reloaded their rifles in chorus. The five soon realized how difficult the situation had become.

"Make sure to avoid them at all costs. Spinjitsu if necessary. And take them out." ordered Cole. The ninja spun in all directions as shots rang out and flew past them.

"Zane!" Kai called out. "Want to try to ice these guys?" he asked.

"Affirmative my brother," Zane replied. He spun closer towards the disoriented soldiers, and pointing his katana at them, directed his ice powers into freezing them. The soldiers noticed the incoming pile of ice too late- before they knew it they were all perfectly encased in gleaming, solid blocks of ice.

"Good work my friend," Kai said to Zane as he walked towards him. "It looks like we've covered that threat. Now on to the oth..."

Cole silenced him, as he instructed everyone to listen closely. They could hear a faint rumbling, until...

...they saw an explosion brighter than Kai's uniform land in the middle of the group and blow everyone away.

Kai himself angrily stomped his left leg on the ground- how could the fire ninja possibly be on fire himself? He looked around at everyone else. Lloyd had sustained a minor concussion, while everyone else was generally okay with the exception of minor cuts and bruises. As they got up, they looked around for the source of the explosion, when they saw it.

A steel monster, with a single enormous artillery piece mounted on its top, was escorted by another squad of soldiers. Cole saw a challenge, ran at the tank, and punched its front armor plating. It only resulted in a minor dent and a swollen hand. His pride hurt, Cole thought he could hear the tank's commander laughing silently to himself.

Suddenly, Jay was seized by an idea. He raised his weapon, as the sky darkened above him. He yelled as loudly as he could to Zane to get under cover, as blue lightning began to arc between his hands, forming a ball that he then launched at the tank. There was a loud sizzle and Jay was forced to look away as he heard the screams of pain rise from the soldiers. When he opened his eyes again, the entire area was scorched for a few meters. The tank had stopped rumbling and there were fallen dark pieces of charcoal surrounding it.

"Well, I think that took care of it." he stated rather melancholically. "I'm not so sure if we should continue this mission."

"Come on Jay, what happened to defending what's right and all that?" Kai asked.

Jay walked over to Kai, grabbed his shoulders, and shook him hard. "Don't you see what I've done? I've- fucking- fried- fellow humans to death! Don't you see what this means? I'm a murderer! What will Nya think of me now, now that I've killed some people. She'll probably think I'm a complete and total monster!"

"If anything, it was self-defense," inserted Zane.

"And you shut up. I'm leaving." Jay lashed out.

"Well, majority rules. I'm leaving too," followed Zane. Cole subsequently left as well, as Lloyd and Kai, left with no other option, finally relented and headed back to Destiny's Bounty.

* * *

President Walker waited silently at his desk, grinning to himself.

He had to fake sympathy when he met with the CEO of PCA to console her about the loss, but inside, he was celebrating. True, the ninja had forced the demolition to be delayed by a few weeks, but they were the defeated ones in the end- they had created quite the amount of bad press for themselves.

For one thing, they had killed a few soldiers and destroyed a tank, members of an army dedicated to fighting the Serpentine. It would be a trivial task for his propaganda to claim "if they're not with us they're with them" and equate the ninja to the Serpentine. And he knew, the populace would hold nothing back against the friends of the Serpentine.

To top it off- the ninja had destroyed the property of the PCA, and Walker was determined not to be lenient. As far as he was considered, the ninja were also fugitives, another unfavorable label in the eyes of the public. In any case, the ninja had placed themselves in a very unenviable position.

"But of course," Walker thought to himself, "I never lose."


	5. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: I've decided to approach the Stone Army episodes in my own way, where my story will weave in and out of the offcial one. On another note, this next part is probably my least favorite part of writing- the l word- but it's necessary for the plot. It features Jay and Nya- there, now you can skip to the part with President Walker.**

Jay was sitting on his bed, a pillow in his face. He didn't want to kill- but he had to. Or maybe if they hadn't gone on the mission in the first place, he and the others would be alright. As far as he was concerned, he was just as low as Lord Garmadon and Pythor, stooping to such base tactics to win. He could hardly consider himself a hero of Ninjago anymore.

Abruptly, there was a knock on the door, and Jay instantly knew who it was. He quickly wiped his face on the pillow, and donned his ninja mask to hide red and swollen face. When he opened the door, Nya was leaning on the frame, her skeptical look on her face.

"I heard from the others that you aren't feeling so well, so I came by to talk." she stated in her ambrosial voice.

"I-I'm fine, if you are," Jay replied.

"Jay, we need to have a talk," she countered, her tone growing slightly harsher.

The two of the them sat down on Jay's bed. Jay was about to release an inundation of apologies when Nya silenced him.

"Okay, first, you should take that mask off your face," she instructed him. Once he complied, she continued.

"I understand what happened recently. And, unlike what you think, I don't think of you as a monster or a villain." She sighed before moving on. "The reality is, things have gotten complicated recently, and what you did was the best choice given the circumstances."

Jay thought about his decision. To be honest, what other options did he have? Diplomacy, running away? Maybe Zane was right, maybe it was in self-defense. His black-and-white vision of the world was shattered, as his mind's eye began to register shades of grey in earnest.

_Sensei had really meant something when he talked with us before the mission._ he thought to himself. He could only hope to make the right choices in the future.

"Wait, Nya, so do you still love me?" he asked her. He knew it was a pathetic question, but then again, he was feeling quite pathetic himself at the moment.

Nya's face brightened, and a bit of her perfect smile returned to her lips. "Of course I do, Jay. I always will, because I know you're the one for me." She directed her angelic pecan eyes at Jay's, and the two stared at each other for a while, leaning closer with every passing unit of time until their lips softly intersected.

Sensei Wu calmly sipped tea while observing the two lovebirds. He thought of his sibling Garmadon- it was a different sort of love, but he still remembered that warm fuzzy feeling he once had around his older brother. He spilled a single tear as he watched.

Perhaps of happiness, seeing one of the last lights burning in a Ninjago running on shattered lanterns and cold embers.

Perhaps of sadness, as he realized that one day, it would experience the same fate.

* * *

Scientist Dr. Sanjay Singh paced the side of the room nervously as President Walker and General Anderson were watching a presentation. The room itself was austere, with only two metal folding chairs in the center for the President and the General, and a large screen in the front.

The scientist that was presenting at the moment was immediately before Sanjay in presentation order. He proposed building a rocket and exploring space, a topic that was apparently rather soporific for the general. Sanjay could see the disapproval etched in Walker's face, and nearly felt bad for the scientist who, in all likelihood, inputted much effort into his proposal. But with competition for government funding and resources being so fierce, he had no space left for pity, a quality he left behind on his first day of internship.

President Walker called for the ultimate insult and commanded that the scientist terminate his presentation earlier than expected. Sanjay immediately panicked then calmed himself down- after all, at least he had an interesting topic. He assured himself the topic would certainly interest the general for its military applications.

He strutted up to the front of the room, confident in his speaking and persuasion abilities despite his heavy accent. Sanjay waved his hand in a broad gesture towards the techies, and the screen gleamed with an image of a multi-colored raspberry with orbiting balls. He smiled at President Walker and commenced.

"Dear potential sponsors,

Today I am here to report on an exciting discovery by my fellow physicists at the Relativistic Particle Accelerator-Collider- the first traces of evidence for Supersymmetric Theory. In essence, we believe we have detected minute amounts of sparticles, the super-symmetric partners of the particles we know and love," he continued to smile at Walker and the general, smiling on the outside but worried on the inside. "We have a few theoretical predictions as to how sparticles will interact with macroscopic amounts of matter, and believe that large of amounts of sparticles could perhaps be weaponized."

President Walker abruptly interrupted him "Repeat that last line again, Dr. Sanjay?"

Sanjay smiled at President Walker again, reassured that he had gained his interest. "I said it could be possible to weaponize massive amounts of sparticles. While the limitations of quantum theory inhibit our ability to predict with total confidence the interactions between sparticles and normal matter, we do know it does have a detrimental effect on the matter. I merely ask for additional funding for the RPAC to continue its work in synthesizing more sparticles."

President Walker took on a deliberative demeanor as he considered the possibilities. "How devastating could these sparticles be if weaponized?"

Sanjay bit his lip but instantly reassumed his frigid countenance. To be honest, the potential of sparticles was much worse than Walker was probably imagining. Dr. Sanjay decided to be frank and hope the gung-ho president would still be willing.

"One shell densely filled with sparticles could wipe out the entirety of Ninjago," Sanjay calmly stated.


End file.
